Freedom of the Press

 

 The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms “guarantees the rights and freedoms set out in it subject only to such reasonable limits prescribed by law”. So, what are the “fundamental” freedoms? They include “freedom of association” and “freedom of peaceful assembly” as well as “freedom of thought, belief, opinion and expression, including freedom of the press and other media of communication”.

Sounds great does it not? Unfortunately, in the case of the latter, what good is “freedom” if you do not want to exercise that right? All sources of “media of communication” have pretty much abdicated that right. Why was it considered so important in the first place? Why is the freedom to have thought, belief, opinion, and expression tied so closely to media of communication?

Recently I read an essay by Bryan Golden titled “Freedom – hard to get but easy to lose”. In it he stated- “Tyrants depend on people’s ignorance, inaction, or apathy to confiscate power”. The only way we can avoid ignorance, inaction and apathy is to publicly dissent. And how do we do that? By speaking our minds, thus the freedom of “opinion and expression” and being able to share those opinions and thus the “freedom of the press”. When that vehicle for disseminating opinion and expression fails to do its duty tyranny wins.

The Twenty First century has so far been marked by media failing we, the people, by not holding up their part of the bargain. The media need to be the vehicle of dissent and not the gate keepers.

It may be true that like any business, they have the right to choose whatever path they want. But at the core of any society that wants to call itself “civilized” there must be core morals and beliefs that transcend mere greed. But even then, to pick one side makes absolutely no sense. Is not the money to be earned of equal value no matter what beliefs people have? Should it not be financially lucrative to allow all people access to a means of sharing your message whether it be for or against?

I once subscribed to a newspaper in another jurisdiction who followed unstated rules as best they could: “news” reports stated only facts with no opinion attached; opinions were kept exclusively to the Opinion section; and in that section a full spectrum of views was always maintained through the use of staff and freelance writers. If we look at most media these days those “rules” are no longer followed. For example, I recently came across a short “news” piece about caribou which stated, “the province says it is monitoring a fragile caribou herd”. Note that the word “fragile” is an opinion and thus had no place in this piece as it was supposed to only give facts.  Similarly, in the same issue all the “opinion” pieces were from the same service and reflected the same points of view.

The net effect is that dissent has been suppressed to the point we likely have gone down the rabbit hole too far to easily return. To think that the last world war was fought, and people died, including many Canadians, to protect our freedoms. Yet we now ignore the Canadian Legion motto: “Lest we Forget”. We are being overwhelmed by tyranny whether it be petty bureaucrats using the dishonest byline “to keep us safe” or politicians wanting to make a “reset”.  I know there are others out there like me who try to expose the lies but without the full support of the media our dissent, like sound in a vacuum, can go nowhere.

I will close with a quote by George Orwell, authour of “1984”- “Freedom of the Press, if it means anything at all, means the freedom to criticize and oppose”. If only it were still so.